If you are considering starting an e-commerce store online, research and planning are vital to its success.

• Research how any of your market competitors carry out their online trading.
• Make sure you have clearly-defined products or services that can be sold with minimum human intervention during the sales process. (This may include fixed cost products such as clothing, software, subscriptions etc.)
• Try to settle on a costing matrix where different versions are available if applicable. (Eg. weekly, monthly or annual magazine subscriptions).
• Make sure that your products or services can be delivered within a well defined timeframe.
• Implement realistic storage and shipping systems to avoid cancellations or late delivery.
• Consider how your e-commerce website design will be publicised. This may include online promotion, search engine marketing, banner adverts. Offline marketing is important too, with PR launches, campaigns and advertising forming a small part of available marketing options.
• It is essential to perform secure payments on all internet e-commerce transactions. Sliced use e-commerce website design solutions third party suppliers such as PROTX and PAYPAL to authorise the final payments. Any e-commerce sites without secure transactions are purely a liability.
• If you have a regular physical shop with an Epos system, it would be sensible to investigate integrating the database online, so that data input is minimised and your products remain consistent both on and offline.
• Thinking through what information you give to your visitors is very important. What you may deem as going without saying, such as product dimensions, weight or colour, may need to be outlined to potential customers to instil confidence and knowledge in your products.
• Easy maintenance and a web content management system for an e-commerce solution is vital if you have changing products. Prices, delivery charges, colours, quantities etc. can all be changed with Sliced e-commerce solution.

Last but not least the overall look and feel of your website is vital. Your e-commerce policies such as returns policy, shipping rules and contact details should be easily found. The design itself should act as a platform and showcase for your products, allowing for easy navigation and editing of the customers' basket.

Sliced provide e-commerce website design solutions for UK companies and international clients. With international sales however, the implications of international value added tax (VAT) should be considered, as well as the cost of returns, customer contact etc.
Read more: Sliced e-commerce solution